The invention relates to an arrangement for obtaining recorded tape-like magnetic record carriers comprising digital information, for example digital audio information, recorded on an A and a B side, which sides each comprise one or more contiguous tracks running in longitudinal direction on the record carrier in which tracks the digital information is recorded, the information being recorded in the tracks on the A and B sides in such a way that the record carrier is to be transported in a first direction for reproducing the digital information from a track on the A side and the record carrier is to be transported in a second direction opposite to the first direction for reproducing the digital information from a track on the B side, which arrangement comprises recording means for recording the digital information in the tracks on the A and B sides. The invention likewise relates to a record carrier obtained by means of the arrangement, and to a reproducing device for reproducing the record carrier. In the case of digital information, it may be a matter of digital audio information as already observed hereinbefore. Alternatively, it may also be a matter of digital data.
The arrangement of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph, for example, for the case where digital information in the form of digital audio information is concerned, is known in the form of consumer equipment with which home-recorded tapes may be made and in the form of professional duplicating equipment with which prerecorded record carriers may be produced.
In this context one may think of record carriers of the SDAT type as described in the title of "The Art of Digital Audio" by J. Watkinson, Focal Press, 1988, Chapter 9, more specifically, Chapter 9.20 on pp. 345-350. Another possibility is the record carriers of the DCC type as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/686,329 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,330 (PHN 13.314). The Patent Application furthermore describes the arrangement of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph for producing prerecorded record carriers.
In the Patent Application a description is given of how the duplication of the digital audio information is realised on a slave medium so as to obtain the prerecorded record carriers. In one of the embodiments described in that Patent Application, the audio information of the A and B sides is recorded simultaneously on the slave medium during duplication. This is effected with a certain transport direction of the slave medium. This means that for either of the sides, A or B, the audio information is recorded in a direction corresponding to the direction in which the information is read out again at a later instant, but that for the other side, B or A, the audio information is recorded in a direction opposite to the direction in which the information is read out again at a later instant.
As a result, the total transfer characteristic of recording and reproduction proves not to be identical for the audio information on the two sides, leading to the fact that the reproduction of the information from a side reproduced in a direction opposite to the transport direction of recording has a poorer quality.